Democrat Mary Keefe and Republican Brian O'Malley staked out positions tonight at the YWCA on everything from the city's responsible employer ordinance to taxes to the viability of Worcester Regional Airport at a forum for the 15th Worcester District state representative race.

Coming off a primary victory against well-established candidates Dianna Biancheria and Kathleen M. Toomey in a heavily Democratic-leaning district, Ms. Keefe at times tonight hinted that she is preparing for life as a state legislator. She said she has been meeting with the local Statehouse delegation to find out how much of a learning curve she will face if she is elected in November, and said she wants to continue the sort of grass-roots community work she has done through her position with the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center when she gets to Beacon Hill.

But Mr. O'Malley said he, too, is a viable candidate, and believes his chances of winning increased greatly when Ms. Keefe, who he described as having an “extreme special interest agenda,” won the Democratic primary.

Ms. Keefe has been unapologetic about her support for tax increases to fund local services, and repeated her stance last night. She said she was in favor of taxes that protect middle- and low-income taxpayers. She said residents she has met on the campaign trail have told her they are concerned with the condition of city streets, the quality of schools, and other quality of life issues.

“It costs money to run a city,” Ms. Keefe said. “And we've seen residential tax assessments go up, and we're going to pay for it one way or another, fees or whatever. In the past four years, we've lost $20 million here coming into the city. I feel like that's a good way of addressing this loss, because it's impacting us all the way around.”

Mr. O'Malley asked Ms. Keefe if making the wealthy pay their fair share was the best idea. He asked her to define wealthy, and asked her how raising taxes would encourage small businesses to grow.

Ms. Keefe said the proposed tax would only cost a family making $200,000 annually $500 more in taxes.

“To me, that's reasonable,” Ms. Keefe said.

In response to a question, Mr. O'Malley said he is against moving the state toward a single-payer type system of health care.

“Anytime the government gets control over big parts of the economy, it's not a good thing.” Mr. O'Malley said. “If you look at many countries in Europe, they're actually starting to pull away from the single-payer systems, because it's bankrupting their countries.”

Ms. Keefe said she supports universal health care, calling it a smart and appropriate way to control costs. She said access to health care shouldn't “depend on how fat and big your pocketbook is.”

Ms. Keefe said she supported restrictions on gun ownership, particularly assault weapons that aren't connected to recreation or hunting, while Mr. O'Malley said he didn't think more laws were necessary, only more enforcement of laws that are already in place.

“Very rarely do you hear of a gun crime being committed with a legal weapon,” Mr. O'Malley said.

Mr. O'Malley said creating “enterprise zones” to rehabilitate old buildings to encourage business development. He said he also favors tax relief for existing companies that are struggling to stay in the city.

Ms. Keefe said business development should start with better workforce training.

Ms. Keefe said charter schools can distract from issues with traditional public schools; she said in many cases they haven't proven to be much more successful than their traditional counterparts. Mr. O'Malley said competition improves everyone's performance, and while he acknowledged they draw money away from traditional public schools, they also “fill a niche the public schools are not filling,” he said.

Mr. O'Malley said the city's support of a responsible employer ordinance that promotes local hiring on city projects has had the opposite effect of making it hard for local businesses to compete on projects like CitySquare.